Stolen Love (The Wildheart Duet Book 1)

by Murphy Wallace

  Any kind of business having to do with Dawes, kingpin of the Vegas Mob, who uses his congressional title as the country’s biggest cover, is not going to turn out well. The picture that he sent me while he was away confirmed my suspicion.

  There in the picture, staring me in the face, was Congressman Dawes, Moe Randall, and Lock. Moe has reached out to us several times about manufacturing pharmaceuticals that aren’t condoned by the healthcare industry and aren’t sanctioned by the FDA. I turned him down flat and told him never to bring it up again. He hasn’t. At least not with me.

  I will be confronting Lock about this today. I didn’t want Adrienne to come, but she loves Lock and I didn’t want to raise any suspicion. I don’t want her stressed out. It’s not good for her or the baby. Also, Lock would never hurt her. Of this I’m sure. He may be a sick son-of-a-bitch, but he’s always treated Adrienne like a princess.

  * * *

  “Here you go,” Lock hands me a highball glass with two fingers of Macallan 25.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  The tension in this room is so thick I can barely breathe. It’s one thing to confront a co-worker. It’s a whole other thing to have to confront your best friend.

  “So, I’m assuming this isn’t just a social call, then?”

  I look over to Adrienne whose eyebrows are straight up in the air in awkward surprise.

  “I’ll just be in the other room,” she says, looking between Lock and I, “if you need me.”

  When she leaves the room, I turn to Lock. I just want to get this over with.

  “So,” I start. “You want to tell me what you met with Dawes and Moe about in Colorado?”

  Lock laughs pompously, as if he thinks I don’t have a right to ask him such a question. He is standing in front of the hearth in his penthouse, staring deeply into the flames.

  “Just a meeting amongst business men who share the same interest.”

  “And what interest would that be?”

  He stops pacing and says, “Marshall, when we started this company, it was on the foundation of improving the pharmaceutical deprivation in this country. We’ve achieved that. Moe, Dawes, and myself all firmly believe that now is the time to expand the business to help this country in,” he pauses, looking for the correct words, “other ways.”

  “By other ways, I’m assuming you mean ways that will help the sick and sadistic underground of this country?”

  “Maybe,” Lock smirks. “Marshall, quit being such a boy scout. There are people in this country who want us to use our resources to help wipe out crime and terrorism. I don’t understand how you can’t get on board with that.”

  “You don’t understand how? How does the medicine that we currently manufacture end up in the hands of the wrong people? There are people out there who will get ahold of any drug that we make, good or bad, and use it incorrectly to achieve their goals.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t stop us from manufacturing them! You’re not seeing the bigger picture here, Marshall.”

  “I do see the bigger picture, Lock. It’s a dangerous one. If we go down this path then we ought to just consider ourselves war lords. We would be Tony fucking Stark delivering weapons of mass destruction to the enemy!” I shout.

  All of the sudden a door flies open and I hear Adrienne screaming.

  “Stop it!” She comes flying into the room, tears streaming down her face. “Stop screaming at one another. You guys are like brothers. I can’t take it.”

  Lochlan

  I watch as Marshall rushes over to her, pulling her in for a hug. “We’re fine,” he says, trying to comfort her. “I’m sorry we made you worry. We were just having a discussion.” He looks up at me. “Right, Lock?”

  “Yup.” I answer, not looking at him, before finishing my scotch in one large gulp.

  “I’m sorry,” Adrienne starts. “I’m really not sure what came over me. Damn hormones.”

  Something in me snaps. I’ve had it. I can’t stand the perfection of their relationship. I can’t stand the constant talk of their pregnancy. I storm out of the room in a huff, not knowing exactly where I am going, I just need to get away from them. I walk down the hallway, as if my feet know where to guide me, but my mind hasn’t caught up yet.

  Before I know it, I am in my closet. In front of the back wall. The wall that hides all of the hard work and long hours Curtis and I have been putting in over the past couple of years. Then it hits me. Why my subconscious led me here.

  I have one of each of the drugs that we’ve perfected here, in my secret hiding spot. I push on the horizontal wooden panel, thirteenth from the ceiling, and the keypad pops out from the wall.

  I enter the passcode and three drawers move outward toward me, away from the wall. The sight of all of them, side by side, each one more powerful than the last, makes my dick hard.

  I push the top drawer back in. The one I’m looking for isn’t in this one. The one I want is on the next level down. That is the drawer that houses drugs that, while they aren’t fatal, can cause life-changing damage. There are seven syringes in this drawer and the one I want is in the dead center.

  This one was requested by Dawes and some of his colleagues, specifically, with the intention of cleaning up any unwanted surprises that may arise between them and their mistresses. They have an image to protect. I pull it from its space within the padding and place it into the inside pocket of my suitcoat.

  I shut the last drawers and turn to leave my room. What to do with this. Obviously, I can’t just inject her with it. As I come down the hall a thought occurs to me. I go into the kitchen and grab a glass of ice water. I place two lemons wedges in it, to disguise any odd flavoring, and take it into my office.

  “Adrienne, here is some water. I am sorry to have upset you. Marshall is right, we were just talking about something. It got a little heated, but it wasn’t our intention.” I look over to Marshall, who mouths, “Thank you,” and I see him wipe a lingering tear from her perfect porcelain cheek, now tinted red from emotion.

  I move in closer to her and put my hand on her head. She turns to me with a smile and wraps her hands around my waist. When she breaks the hug, I hand her the water. “Drink up,” I say with a smile. “That little one inside of you needs lots of nutrients.”

  “My god,” she says as she rolls her eyes playfully. “Did Marshall tell you to say that? He tells me the same thing one-hundred times a day.”

  I glare at Marshall, annoyance and anger in my stare and say, “Well, he always knows what’s best.”

  Adrienne

  That night, I wake up in the worst pain that I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I am covered in sweat and shivering, but my stomach feels like it’s on fire. It’s like the worst cramping pain I’ve ever had. The thought has me sitting up as fast as I can. My sudden movement waking Marshall from his sleep.

  “What’s wrong?” he shouts, as I throw the blankets back.

  Both of us gasp as we watch our once cream-colored sheets turn a deep and violent red color beneath me. We sit there, paralyzed with shock and horror, as we watch our happiness, our life, our future seep through each soft strand of Egyptian cotton out of our lives, gone forever.

  Present

  Lana

  “Lana, sweetie.” A voice whispers as my body begins to shake slightly.

  “Hey. Lana. It’s Owen.” I realize then, that he is lightly nudging me, trying to get me to wake up.

  I grumble. I haven’t left my room since the incident in the garden two nights ago. Norah brings me my meals, but I haven’t eaten. Owen stops by for a moment at a time, but I haven’t spoken. Lock comes by to tell me that he’s glad his girl is back and that she remembers her place, but I haven’t cried.

  All I can do is replay what happened over and over again. Every time I think that I’ve hit rock bottom, Lock takes a jackhammer to it and I fall a little bit more. I wish he would have just killed me.

  All of a sudden, I am being lifted from my bed and into the air.


  “I didn’t want to have to do it this way, but I can’t let you stay in that bed one more minute. You know I love you, and I know you’ve been through a lot, again, but you stink.”

  “What are you talking abo—aaahhhh!” All of a sudden I am in the shower, still in my pajamas, under a spray of ice cold water.

  “What the fuck, Owen?” I scream at him. He isn’t fazed as he starts running his hands through my hair, getting it wet. He grabs my shampoo next and starts massaging it into my hair.

  “You don’t have to do that for me, you know.” But it feels so good.

  “I know, but if it were left up to you, you’d still be in bed. God only knows how much longer you’d be in there, getting gangrene and bed sores.”

  I turn around, wide-mouthed, with a look of shock on my face. He laughs and gives me that perfect little side smile of his. If I weren’t stuck here, if I had the life of a normal girl, I could see myself loving Owen or someone just like him. He is smart, funny, attentive, gentle, caring; an all-around good person.

  When I first met him, I didn’t give him a second glance. To me he was just another one of Lock’s cronies; there because he wanted power or protection—from everyone other than Lock, that is.

  The more I noticed him around the estate, the more I saw that he wasn’t like the rest of Lock’s men. He looked at me. Not just at me, though, inside of me. He saw me. It’s as if our souls were connected.

  The first time he spoke to me, though he scared the shit out of me, I knew that my suspicions about him were correct. I woke up starving one night, so I went down to the kitchen to get something to eat. When I finish making my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I begin to put all of the ingredients back where they belong. Just like in a scary movie, when I closed the fridge door, boom there he was. Out of nowhere.

  “Oh my god!” I screamed.

  He reached out and put one hand up to my mouth as the other hand brought a finger to his mouth signaling for me to “Shhh.”

  My eyes went wide and I was convinced he was there to do harm. He stood there looking at the ceiling, listening for a trace of sound coming from somewhere in the house. When he was satisfied that no one heard me scream, he removed his hand from my mouth and looked at me. I was shivering in fear, my eyes still wide.

  “Hi,” he said.

  I stood there blinking at him.

  “I’m Owen,” he whispered.

  “Lana,” I answered and walked around him toward the counter where my sandwich was. I picked it up and started to take it back to my room when he spoke again.

  “Do you want some company?” I was more shocked by this than I was when he appeared behind the refrigerator door.

  “Um,” I said, completely shell-shocked. He didn’t wait for me to answer before grabbing the bread from the breadbox, the peanut butter from the pantry, and the grape jelly from the fridge.

  I stood there completely unsure of what I should do. A thousand thoughts were running through my head at one time. Was this a test? What did Lock want me to do? If I left, would I get in trouble for disrespect? If I stayed, would I get in trouble for having fun or flirting or some other ridiculous thing that Lock could claim I was doing.

  I was still standing there when he had finished putting his sandwich together.

  “Milk?” he asked.

  “What?”

  He got up from his stool and walked over to the cabinet where the glasses were. He grabbed two, got the milk out, and poured one for each of us. He walked back to the kitchen island and placed a glass in front of me. My eyes moved from his to the glass. He stood there for a moment before removing my sandwich from my hand and placing it in front of the chair next to his.

  “Sit,” he said as he patted the seat of the bar stool.

  I didn’t move as he took a bite out of his sandwich. He’s chewed as he turned back to me, confused as to why I was still standing there, like an idiot. He got up again and pulled my seat out. He moved behind me and nudged me toward the chair.

  The one thing about this entire exchange that stood out the most was the fact that I didn’t flinch when he touched me. I knew that there was something about him. Something different from all of the other men in this house of horror.

  “I don’t know how you can eat that crap,” he said as I took my seat.

  “Excuse me?” I asked. “You’re eating the same thing as me.”

  “No I’m not. I’m eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You are eating a peanut butter and snobby strawberry preserves sandwich.”

  My mouth twitched slightly and for the first time in as many months as I’d been there, I smiled. He winked at me and we ate in near silence while we finished our sandwiches.

  He reaches around me and adjusts the water temperature so it gets warmer.

  “You’re getting your clothes all wet! Someone will notice when you go to leave.”

  “They’ll dry. I can stay here with you for a little bit while they do. Unless you’re kicking me out?” Again with the smile. He puts the bottle of conditioner back before rubbing it through my hair.

  “You know, you really should think about quitting. You’d make an excellent hair washer/head massager.”

  At that, he slows his movements down a little.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Well, that’s one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about. I am going to let you finish washing and I’ll meet you out there when you’re all finished, okay?”

  “Um, yeah. Yeah, okay.” He winks and walks out of the shower.

  I finish washing everywhere. I do feel a little better now that I am up and clean again. Owen always knows best.

  I dry off and get my robe on before leaving the bathroom and meeting Owen in the sitting area of my room. He has a large yellow envelope in his hands.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  He looks from the envelope to me, back to the envelope, before opening it and pulling out a small, rectangular, navy blue item. It’s a small book of sorts. After that, he pulls out something that looks like an ID card, and a third item, also rectangular, which is small and made out of paper. It hits me suddenly.

  “Owen,” I start.

  “Lana, stop. I know what you’re going to say, but you need to listen to me. Okay?”

  I nod my head and he passes the three items to me.

  A passport. A license. A social security card. The same name on all three documents—Adrienne Trent.

  “Wha—I don’t understand, Owen.”

  “Which part don’t you understand?” This is a genuine question, not patronization on his part.

  “Trent… I mean, as in Marshall Trent?”

  “Yeah, Lock would never think that you’d be using that name. Not that I think he will be able to find you, but just in case.”

  I guess that makes sense.

  “Did you figure out a plan or something, yet? I told you how I felt about that. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “I don’t have a plan yet. I wanted to make sure that we had these first, in the event that we need to get out. I have to be honest with you, Lana. I know it will be soon. The way Lock has been acting lately, he’s off his rocker more than usual. He’s a loaded gun waiting to go off.”

  “Do you have any thoughts though? Anything that you think we might do if and when we find a way out?”

  “The only certainty that I have right now? We will be getting far, far, far away from here.”

  December 2014

  Marshall

  Emptiness. Denial. Despair. Anger. Heartbreak. Pain. Loss. Agony. Deception. There are a number of words that I can use to describe what I’ve been feeling since Adrienne miscarried a month ago, but none of them will ever come close to capturing how I am feeling inside.

  Of course no one can predict something like this happening to one person specifically, but knowing that something devastating like this could happen was exactly why I didn’t want kids in the first place.

  A
drienne gives me the kind of hope that I never thought I could have. Of all of the feelings in the world, hope is the most crippling when it shatters.

  Adrienne

  Thirty-seven days. That’s how long it’s been since our lives were torn apart. You’d think it couldn’t get much worse than losing a baby, but losing your husband too, that makes the gaping hole in the middle of my chest more agonizing than ever.

  I was in the same state of shock as Marshall when we went to the hospital that night. I was in the same state of shock as Marshall in the days following.

  When my body could no longer stand the absence of his touch, when my heart could no longer feel the warmth of his love, when my mind could no longer think clearly due to his silence, I pleaded with him to let me in. I begged him to open up to me.

  There was nothing. My words were deflected and discounted. My touch was met with agitation. I think back to this past weekend.

  With tears pouring over the brims of my eyes, I walked over to our bed and stood next to it. It was Monday. He had been laying there ever since he got in from work on Friday evening.

  Over the past two weeks, I have been trying to jog his memory of happier times before our world crumbled. When we woke up on Saturday morning, I asked him if he wanted to go to lunch at Serenata that day. He blinked a few times in response, but there was nothing more.

  Later that same day, I found myself back in the bedroom asking him if he wanted to watch Lethal Weapon with me. His eyes were closed and his breathing was relaxed but he wasn’t asleep. I’ve slept, wrapped in his arms, for too long now not to know the steady pattern of his breath when he is sleeping soundly.

  “Marshall!” I shouted as I my elbows hit the bed, my knees getting rug burn as they crashed into the carpet beneath them. He didn’t even flinch. “God damn it! Would you please say something? Please do something? Please feel something?”